"Bonafide Gangster"

Kevin considers who he should call first, the anticipation building like the pressure inside a can of cola as he shakes it before shotgunning it into his open mouth. The sting of bubbles in the back of his throat is hard to swallow and always feels a bit harsh, but in a satisfying way. Like how it feels when he calls a number he knows he’s not supposed to and gets scolded for it.

The list of numbers is posted in the narrow hallway beside an avocado-green wall-mounted phone. His finger traces the lines of names, and he selects a number from the list––one of the many he knows he’s not supposed to call. It rings three times before an out of breath voice answers with a curt hello.

“Oh, hi. Is Carla home?” Kevin knows what the answer is going to be before he even hears the exasperated sigh. He knows this because he calls this same number around the same time every day during the thirty or so minutes after shift change when dinner is being made and the staff are too busy to pester him about completing his afternoon chores. Cindy has just started the evening shift and will soon call him to the dining room for dinner. Tonight, it’s meatloaf and mashed potatoes with buttered peas. He hopes whoever went shopping last remembered to buy more ketchup. He’s going to need a lot of it. As caregivers go, Cindy is pretty good, but she’s by far the worst cook of the bunch.

“Kevin, what have I told you about calling the house during dinnertime? You know Carla isn’t allowed to talk right now.”

“Oh, sorry, Mrs. Mathis. I was thinking about something and just had to ask her a very important question.”

Mrs. Mathis is no neophyte. She is well-versed in his subterfuge and wise to his various dinnertime infiltration tactics. She subverts him with a pointed, “Not right now, Kevin. It’s going to have to wait. We’re in the middle of eating dinner.”

“But if I call later she’ll be gone. She always goes to gymnastics on Tuesdays, right after she eats dinner.”

“I suppose you’ll just have to talk to her about it another day then. Goodbye, Kevin.” He hears the distinctive click of the receiver before the line goes dead, and he is left with the mournful whine of the dial tone.

Kevin hangs up the phone. He considers his options carefully before finally dialing another number. Each conversation is a rare treat, something to savour, and he is like a gourmand, carefully selecting the choicest cuts to dine on. His appetite today is for something lively, something with a bit of extra zing. Raymond usually delivers.

He punches in the number. The phone rings a full seven times before he finally decides to give up on Raymond.

He dials another number with no answer, followed by another with the same result. Finally, the fourth picks up. It’s his friend Tyler, whom he’s already talked to. He’s not really supposed to call him right now, but it’s okay because Tyler answers this time and not his dad. Tyler’s dad gets angry that Kevin calls so many times a day, so the rule––which he breaks every day, almost without exception––is that he’s only allowed to call just once. This is his third time calling since three PM.

“Uh, hey man. Sorry, I can’t talk right now.”

Kevin tries to come up with something interesting to entice a short conversation, but he can’t think of anything quickly enough to keep Tyler on the line before he ends the conversation with a friendly but firm, “We can chat after I get off school tomorrow, kay bud?”

He hangs up the phone. There’s one last number he hasn’t called. This is a number he knows he’s not supposed to call, but for an entirely different reason than the others. This friend always has time to talk.

The voice on the other end of the line is exuberant, “Kevin! My man. How’s it hanging?”

He beams into the receiver and gives the reply he’s been taught to repeat, but that, somewhat embarrassingly, he doesn’t really understand, “Long, low, and to the left.”

“Haha, alright.” There’s a pause. Kevin hears the intake of air followed by a long exhale. Ronny is smoking a cigarette.

Kevin wishes he had a cigarette right now, too. He doesn’t really smoke them, but he loves how cool it makes him feel to hold a cigarette between his knuckles, just like a gangster. That’s what Ronnie says, that the way he holds his cigarette is gangster. He knows Ronnie will share a cigarette with him if they hang out, so he says, “Wanna meet up?”

Ronnie is enthusiastic, “You know I’m always down to hang.”

Cindy calls out from the kitchen that dinner is ready, and Kevin lets out a sigh, vexed that his fun is being spoiled by a date with bad meatloaf. “Sorry, I have to eat dinner right now, but I can come to your place when I’m done.”

“Alright, man. See you soon.”

***

Kevin tiptoes in at almost two hours after curfew. He nearly upends an umbrella holder while removing his shoes, but he catches it a split second before it can topple to the ground and create a racket that would be certain to wake his caregiver. His stealth is unnecessary. Cindy is not in her usual spot, fast asleep, snoring into the cushions of the plush blue sofa. She’s been waiting up for him, sitting in the chair by the fireplace, reading one of her novels. The kind with breathless titles in raised gilded script and rugged, muscle-bound men on the jacket. He much prefers the ones with the girls on the cover, huge breasts spilling out over the tops of lacy blouses––which he sometimes secretly sneaks up to his room to look at when he thinks no one is watching.

Her eyes are glassy and red rimmed, and he detects an uncustomary hint of annoyance in their normally placid hazel depths. She has a second job to go to in the morning and is usually fast asleep by now. He feels bad because he knows that now she’s going to be exhausted for her five AM start at the co-op stocking shelves. She looks at her watch. “I was just about to call your parents and send out a search party for you. You know you have to be back at the house by ten PM. It’s nearly midnight, Kevin. You’ve already been warned that if you continue to break curfew rules, you’re going to lose the privilege of leaving the house without a chaperone.” This privilege is something he’s proud of––a distinction that sets him apart from his four other roommates who aren’t independent enough to come and go without assistance. Loss of privilege is a serious threat to his hard-earned independence, and he bridles at the thought of having to be escorted to all his hangouts by some nosy caregiver.

He’s a little tipsy and feeling bolder than usual from the two Molson Canadian beers they pilfered from Ronnie’s dad and shared in the shed behind his friend’s parent’s house. He squares his shoulders and repeats the phrase Ronnie has instructed him to say if questioned about his tardiness, “I’m an adult, you can’t tell me what to do.” He flinches while he says this because he knows it’s not really true, he’s powerless to assert any real authority.

Technically he is an adult. He’d even been able to order a beer at the pool hall last week after proudly showing the pretty brunette waitress his new ID card with his name and birthdate printed right on it in bold, black text next to a photo of him with his goofy grin and shock of red hair. But, in spite of having reached the age of majority, he remains restricted from many of the privileges of adulthood. He had never been allowed to drive, despite years of begging his parents to let him get his drivers licence, but he had demanded, at the very least, that his parents get him a photo ID so he could drink beer at the pool hall with the league guys on pool night.

“Yes, Kevin, you are an adult. But you know that in this house we have rules,” his caregiver says sternly. Cindy is his favorite caregiver, she’s the one who most treats him like an adult. He hopes to be able to reason with her. Make her see how unfair it all is, that he, an obvious grown-up, has to follow dumb curfew rules.

“All my other friends get to stay out till whatever time they want. Ronny doesn’t have to go home every night at ten. It’s not fair that I have to be home at ten. I think my curfew should be midnight, not ten.” He crosses his arms and tilts his chin in what he hopes conveys a posture of confidant authority.

“Oh, so that’s where you’ve been. I see. Well, Ronnie is a thirty-year-old man, and you are a young man with special needs.”

Special. He hates that word. A word intended to convey some sort of exceptionality, but one that actually just makes everyone treat him like he’s a child. “Ronnie says you’re all just trying to control me, that I’m an adult and I don’t actually have to listen to you.”

“Ronnie is way too old to be hanging around you. And what’s more, he doesn’t understand your situation and shouldn’t be filling your head with nonsense.” She lets out a long sigh and gives him a pitying look. He hates when people look at him like that because he knows it means they don’t really see him as an adult, capable of making his own decisions. “Look, there are rules in place here for your safety. You don’t have to agree with them, but you do have to abide by them. I’m going to have to write you up and report this to your parents.”

Kevin stomps his foot and pivots towards the stairs, before turning back to face her. “I used to think you were cool, Cindy, but you know what? You’re actually really mean.”

***

The couple they picked up are like no one Kevin has ever encountered before. Their movements are quick and jerky, and everything that comes out of their mouths seems to issue forth at inhuman speed. He asks a few questions, the way his mother taught him to do when making conversation with strangers, but he’s having trouble following their answers because they jump so quickly between topics without having finished their original thoughts. It reminds him of when his brothers used to play piggy in the middle with him, their words flying over his head in a volley, gone before he can grasp them.

Kevin and Ronnie had been drinking beer and chucking stones at empty cans they’d set up on fence posts at the Keyholes––a favorite back road spot of the local teens named for its series of dead-end cul-de-sacs. The remnants of a stalled housing development that had lost steam when not enough buyers had materialized from the inhabitants of the little town to make such an undertaking viable, and whose only evidence of ever having been dreamt up in the first place was three heavily wooded and mostly unused dead-end roads. He’d been grounded an entire week from solo outings after the last incident and was told not to hang out with Ronnie anymore, but he’d lied to Cindy and said he was going to play basketball at the school with James. She’d let him go with a stern warning to be back by ten PM sharp. Kevin managed the lie with unexpected ease and relished the surge of excitement he’d felt at his little rebellion. He’d hopped into Ronnie’s van feeling, for all the world, like a bonafide gangster.

On the way back from their trip to the Keyholes, Ronnie made a stop at the Chevron for a pack of Du Maurier Lights. While parked at the store a man and a woman had approached Ronnie to ask for a ride up to the highway in exchange for a couple beers from the six pack of Pilsner the guy was carrying. Never one to turn down a free beer, Ronnie had said no problem and told them to hop in the back.

Kevin, whose gangster bravado had started to wear a bit thin at the prospect of another week of grounding, reminded Ronnie that he had to go home before curfew, and asked if he wouldn’t mind dropping him off first.

Kevin spots the turn for Pine Street and is relieved to almost be home. He’s grown tired of the two strangers’ dizzying conversation and has all but given up listening. The beer has made him sleepy, and he works hard at keeping his eyes on the road to stop himself from dozing off in the passenger seat.

Ronnie pulls up to the house next door to Kevin’s place, careful to park behind the tall shrubs that obscure the road from view.

“Hey pal, real glad to meet ya. We’ll see you again sometime, eh?” The guy in the back, who’d introduced himself as Felix, reaches over the front armrest and offers his hand. Kevin takes it and the man shakes it too vigorously.

“Nice to meet you,” Kevin replies with a yawn.

The girl, who has been periodically peering between the orange back window curtains for the duration of the ride, suddenly blurts out, “Shit! It’s the cops!” A siren sounds off close by.

Felix smashes his fist against the back of the seat, jolting Kevin out of his languor. “God damn pigs. Shit! We gotta go. Come on, let’s get the hell outta here.” He swings the door open and launches from the van and into the street then takes off at a full run. The girl scrambles after him but stumbles over the curb, toppling to the ground just as the two police officers reach the van. An officer grabs her and throws her up against the hood of the cruiser while she howls and snarls at him like a whipped dog.

The second officer points his gun at the van’s open door and shouts for everyone to put their hands up and to stay where they are.

At the sight of the gun Kevin shrieks. He’s seen enough gangster movies to know what usually happens when a cop points a gun at someone. All the blood in his body rushes to his head making his ears pound and his cheeks burn. He feels skittish, like a hound-cornered rabbit and despite the warning from the officer to stay put, he has the sudden uncontrollable urge to bolt. The cop shouts at him as he reaches frantically for the door handle. “I said don’t move, and put your hands up where I can see them!”

“I don’t want to die!” Kevin sobs, placing his head in his hands. He wishes he could go back to three hours earlier, to before he called Ronnie and lied to Cindy. He wishes, more than anything right now, that he were safe inside the familiar wood paneling of his bedroom watching a Dawson’s Creek rerun and eating a bag of ripple potato chips with that dip that Cindy makes specially for him from packets of French Onion Soup mixed into sour cream.

The cop’s manner is tense. Kevin’s noncompliance is making him antsy, and his finger tightens on the trigger. He looks poised to shoot, “I said hands up!”

Ronnie’s tremulous voice whispers from the driver’s seat, “Come on, man.”

Just put your hands up.” Then louder, “We don’t want no trouble, officer.”

“Don’t shoot! He has special needs!” Out of the corner of his eye, Kevin sees a flash of blonde streak towards the van.

“Please, just put the gun down, you’re frightening him,” Cindy is out of breath, but her voice comes through her panting firm and authoritative. “He has special needs. This boy has Down syndrome. I’m his caregiver.”

The words feel like a shield against the terrifying violence of the gun. Kevin repeats them to the officer, “Don’t shoot! I have special needs!”

***

The police bring them in for questioning, which for Kevin is both terrifying and thrilling. Kevin has never been in a police station before, and it makes him feel like one of the gangsters in that Quentin Tarantino movie he always makes everyone watch on movie nights.

The police officer is asking Kevin questions while they wait for his parents. Kevin is thrilled to learn that they’d been the getaway drivers for an actual, real live heist. The man and the woman they had picked up had just robbed the liquor store across the road only moments before Kevin and Ronnie had pulled into the Chevron. The shop owner, who had spotted them getting in the van, had written down the plate number and called the police.

Once back at the house, Kevin’s parents give him a full dressing down. They remind him that he has special needs and things could have gone very badly for him if Cindy hadn’t shown up to explain his situation to the police officer. They also inform him that he is in big trouble for lying to Cindy, and that under no circumstance is he to be in contact with that no-good Ronnie again.

Kevin reluctantly agrees to stop hanging out with Ronnie. He nods his understanding when his father reiterates that sometimes other people just know what’s best for him, and that it’s important to follow the rules, even the ones he doesn’t like or agree with. He plays the adventure back in his head, hardly listening. He can’t remember the last time he felt so alive.

The following day during shift change he eyes the list of numbers posted in the narrow hallway, beside the avocado-green wall mounted phone.

His finger traces the line of names, and he selects a number from the list, one of the many he knows he’s not supposed to call. It’s been mostly scribbled out, but that doesn’t really matter because he’s dialed it so many times he now knows it by heart. He feels a little thrill as he dials the number and exchanges hellos. The voice on the other end of the line is exuberant, “Kevin! My man. How’s it hanging?”

Kevin beams into the receiver and once again gives the reply he’s been taught to repeat, but still, embarrassingly, doesn’t really understand, “Long, low, and to the left.”